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From drag queens to trucks, Nabil Harb’s hometown of Lakeland, Florida, is a place he doesn’t want to leave. His knowledge and connection to the area’s land and its communities have made central Florida his photography’s focus.

“There’s this kind of tension between the levels of narrative that can occur here,” Harb said. “And maybe that depends on who you are and what you bring to it, for me it’s Polk County and I know it so well.”

Nabil Harb’s exhibit, “Mater si, magistra no,” is currently on display at Light Work until April 25. The exhibit is a culmination of various works in Polk County, Florida, including scenes of both nature and the various communities Harb grew up around.

Harb also teaches at Florida Southern College, sharing the lessons he’s learned when viewing the world through photography. Even though he’s their professor, his students bring in their own perspectives on using photography to share a narrative, which he learns from.

“When I’m giving them a camera, I’m not telling them what to do with that camera except to explore their own interests,” Harb said. “We all have something to share.”

Harb shoots his photos digitally in black and white, with most works depicting the raw, fragile landscape of Polk County. Through his frequent use of flash photography, Harb desires to tell a story about central Florida as he sees it.

Though the region’s land and creatures are constantly changing, some places always feel the same to Harb.

For years, Harb has weaved his way around the bar and backstage of The Parrot, a LGBTQ+ nightclub he frequently shoots photos at. As a gay man, he’s talked with people about their experiences in Lakeland, specifically during the HIV/AIDS crisis in Polk County.

Using a strobe of light, Harb captures a host of warm human interactions and raw moments in his time photographing at the club. Through this tactic, Harb can look at the before and after of intimate moments.

“When you spend time in a place like that, you fold into the fabric of it,” Harb said.

Harb started photographing at The Parrot the year after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. It was a terrifying and personal time for him, especially since he was only an hour away from the shooting. Harb decided he wanted to focus on the LGBTQ+ community in Florida after the tragedy, and what the nightclub culture meant to the community. From The Parrot, Harb began to photograph the rest of Polk County, eventually focusing on more of central Florida.

Courtesy of Nabil Harb

Much of Nabil Harb’s work is inspired by his identities and hometown of Lakeland, Florida. Growing up, Harb was rarely surrounded by identities similar to his own.

While lots of Harb’s friends had family roots in Polk County, he’s a first generation resident. Harb’s parents immigrated from Palestine and his family is Muslim. His left-leaning political opinions, religion and sexuality weren’t always common among those around him while growing up. Harb called growing up in Lakeland “a textured experience,” but he appreciates the rural lifestyle, like seeing the cows behind his house.

When he started taking photos, Harb didn’t think much about how his identity as a gay, Palestinian-American would influence his work. He was just reacting to the world with his camera.

But a Yale professor from Harb’s time getting his photography master’s degree told him that if you’re really connected with your practice, the things you care about will show up, regardless of whether or not you want it to. That stuck with Harb, and he began to feel that in his photography.

Harb’s web of supporters, including his friend and former Yale classmate Alex Nelson, agree that he’s very intentional and detail-oriented in his practice. Harb shared with her how he uses matte paper for his photographs instead of something more glossy, because it allows the dark points in his photos to suck light in.

The two met during the interview round of the application process at Yale. In their second year at the university, Nelson collaborated with Harb on a video piece. She said he’s one of the most hardworking and dedicated people she’s ever met.

“When he’s interested in portraying something, he really sinks his teeth into it and commits fully to the idea,” Nelson said. “Whether that means getting access to an old prison or getting into a helicopter to get an aerial shot of a landscape in Florida.”

The land in central Florida is untamed. Harb said it’s subversive in its own way, because it’s always going to do what it wants. He can take a photo of the land in Lakeland and relate it back to his own identity as a gay man, even if central Florida doesn’t conjure up that image for most people.

“There’s something inherently a bit queer about the environment, the way it grows, it’s sticky, it’s humid, it holds you,” Harb said.

Location and landscape are integral to the messaging of Harb’s photography. It’s infinite to him. He appreciates the world that already exists, but also the one he’s constructed through his photography.

“I can’t help but think that my engagement with the landscape and honing in on it is something that comes from this fear of things changing,” Harb said.

Harb was getting his bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of South Florida when he started thinking about who was telling the stories of places like Polk County and the rest of central Floria. He decided he wanted to be one of these storytellers.

Part of that story is the ever-changing landscape of central Florida. A photo Harb took of a sinkhole is, environmentally, not the greatest sign. But he uses his camera lens to look and respond more deeply to these things. The land’s resistance tells its own narrative about human interaction with it.

Collin Snyder | Staff Photographer

Nabil Harb uses his camera to capture the developing landscape of central Florida. The land’s resistance tells its own narrative about human interaction with it.

Similarly, a photo in the exhibit depicts a defunct army tank, with three massive, discolored tires and a hand reaching for a lighter Harb’s friend dropped underneath it. He said photographing the barely visible lighter juxtaposed under the immense tank reminded him of a “grenade under a tank.”

Harb uses his local sphere to think through things happening globally, like environmental changes and other large-scale conflicts, like the genocide in Gaza, he said.

“There’s kind of this funny little thing that happens, where it took me out of Polk County, to these global narratives,” Harb said.

Other scenes in his photos reflect parts of his daily life, like observations from years of driving down the same road. In the photo “Night Horizon” (2021), Harb photographed where the road intersects with streetlights at the sky’s horizon.

“It’s kind of like those little mental things you do when you’re used to a place or you know to expect something,” Harb said. “Sometimes it feels like you can drive to the grocery store with your eyes closed because you know how long, it’s just these instinctual things.”

Kyna Patel, Harb’s longtime friend since first grade, grew up taking her own photos in Lakeland while watching Harb begin to experiment with his interests in photography, especially after they graduated high school.

“That work is born out of a love of the community that we both grew up in and also the queer community in central Florida,” Patel said.

Harb took a break between high school and undergrad — he moved to Boston for a year and worked in fashion in New York City. Patel had the privilege of watching Harb’s growth through all those years, saying the gap he allowed himself to have between high school and undergraduate study was really instrumental for him.

During this time, Harb could hone the structure of his work, which allowed Patel to see the trajectory and language of his photography play out.

“He’s able to show me things that I also see and find interesting, but he’s able to explain why it’s interesting in a way that I find fascinating,” Patel said.

Creating the exhibit for Light Work was a way for Harb to put together multiple aspects of his work, both the drag queens and the sinkholes, into one utterance about Polk County and how he feels about living there, he said. It tells a more holistic story of Lakeland and Harb’s experiences living and growing up there.

“It’s important to see the world and approach the world with questions, with a camera in your hand,” Harb said.

Published on January 30, 2025 at 12:21 am

Contact Mia: mjones58@syr.edu